Red lanterns and firecrackers began, legend says, as weapons against a horned beast
According to legend, a lion-like monster called the Nian raided villages every new year until an old man discovered it feared the colour red and loud bangs. That story explains red decorations and firecrackers, and the festival itself follows a clever calendar rule placing it on a new moon between 21 January and 20 February.
Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, opens the year on the traditional lunisolar calendar and ranks among the most important holidays in Chinese culture. Celebrations run from New Year's Eve to the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day. Families gather for a reunion dinner, scrub their homes to sweep out bad luck, paste red paper-cuts and couplets wishing for wealth, happiness and long life around doors and windows, light firecrackers and hand out money in red envelopes.
The date comes from astronomy. The month containing the winter solstice counts as the eleventh, so the new year normally lands on the second new moon after the solstice, occasionally the third when a leap month is inserted. In over 96 percent of years it is the new moon nearest lichun, the start of spring and first of the twenty-four solar terms. That is also why the English label Lunar New Year is technically imprecise: the calendar tracks both sun and moon.
Even the name has a political history. Yuan Shikai, interim president of the Republic of China, proposed calling it the Spring Festival in 1914. The People's Republic kept that name, while authorities in Taiwan now use Traditional Chinese New Year. Up to 29 of China's 55 ethnic minority groups celebrate alongside Han Chinese.
The holiday travels well. Large festivities take place across Southeast Asia, from Singapore and Malaysia to Thailand and the Philippines, and further afield in places like Mauritius and Peru. Several neighbouring cultures have related new year festivals, including Tibetan Losar and Vietnamese Tết. In the Nian legend, the monster finally stopped coming, and a Taoist figure named Hongjun Laozu is said to have captured it.
Source: Chinese New Year
